HOLIDAY RUSH TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR FRENZIED SHOPPERS CHRISTMAS, HANUKKAH MAKE FOR HECTIC MALLS.Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer Time, money, patience and parking spaces will be hot commodities this week as shoppers slug their way through the final days of the holiday shopping season. With less than one week until Christmas, the more than $400 billion season would normally be winding down to leave only the most deal-savvy or procrastinating shoppers. But with Christmas Eve falling on Saturday and the first night of Hanukkah the next evening, shoppers intent on waiting until the last minute will keep things busy through Christmas and beyond. ``This is going to be the busiest week of the year, hands down,'' said Scott Krugman, a spokesman with the National Retail Foundation. ``And with Hanukkah falling so late, it's going to be that much busier next week, with returns, clearance and last-minute Hanukkah shopping.'' The last time Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah fell on the same day was 1978. Laurie Morrison, a teacher in Granada Hills shopping at Westfield Fashion Square Westfield Fashion Square, formerly Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, is a shopping mall in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles, California. It is owned by The Westfield Group. It's anchor stores are Bloomingdale's and Macy's. in Sherman Oaks on Monday, said she was wrapping up a few last gifts. ``The things we really needed we got early and for the things we were flexible on, we waited. We saw quite a bit of good deals.'' The season started on a strong note with hordes Hordes may refer to:
Each episode featured six contestants, with two playing one of the following games — Bargain Quiz, Bargain Trap and Bargain Busters — at a time. flocking to stores on the weekend after Thanksgiving, with the National Retail Federation reporting $28 billion worth of sales for the three-day period. The trade group took last week's Commerce Department figures, which showed sales up 7.4 percent in November over the previous year when gasoline gasoline or petrol, light, volatile mixture of hydrocarbons for use in the internal-combustion engine and as an organic solvent, obtained primarily by fractional distillation and "cracking" of petroleum, but also obtained from natural gas, by , restaurant and auto sales Auto Sales The major producers of domestic automobiles report sales monthly. These numbers are seasonally adjusted by the U.S. Department of Commerce and are available to the public one to five business days after the end of each month. are removed, as a sign that the season's on track for a busy close. ``It's not like it's snowing and feels like Christmas, so it sneaks up on you,'' said Jennifer Eisenberg, marketing director for Westfield Fashion Square. ``Then you've also got the value shoppers who wait and hold out for the better deal.'' This urge to wait until the last minute has become a dual function of business and thrift thrift: see leadwort. . While the pickings may be slim by this point, they're at least attractively priced as stores drag out increasingly deep discounts to wake up the die-hard bargain hunters. ``People are stretched more and more for time,'' said Aubie Goldenberg, a partner with Ernst & Young's retail practice in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . ``We work harder, we work more, we have more pressures on our time, so people don't get around to doing the things they need to get done. And retailers have conditioned us to wait, since the deals get better as time drags on.'' Stanley Isaacs of Hancock Park
Hancock Park is a park in Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California which is the location of the La Brea Tar Pits, the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries, and LACMA. said Monday afternoon was his ``first minute - and only - shopping.'' Clutching a pair of Tempur-Pedic pillows, crowing, ``This is it; I'm done, dudes Dudes may refer to:
Brent Hopkins, (818) 713-3738 brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 4 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Shoppers look for bargains and holiday gifts at Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks on Monday. (2 -- 3 -- color) At left, Laurie Morrison, left, and her mother Doni Morrison tote bags at Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks on Monday. Above, even the youngest take part in the last-minute shopping scramble To encode (encrypt) data in order to make it indecipherable without having a secret key to "unlock" it. The term came from the early days of cryptography which camouflaged analog transmissions with secret frequency patterns. . Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer (4 -- color) Post offices flooded right before Christmas Tina Burch/Staff Photographer |
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